Artists beginning with S

The Sabres of Paradise Haunted Dancehall (1994) Five years later, Andrew Weatherall would be calling himself "Lord Sabre" and attempting to control the weather. In 1994, however, the producer used his imagination to more productive effect - creating techno's first concept album. Simultaneously hi-tech yet fogged by pot and dub reggae, this remains an imaginary soundtrack to a more dangerous London.

Saint Etienne Foxbase Alpha (1991) Only two new arrivals from the suburbs (genuine Londoner Sarah Cracknell joined midway through) could conceive such a rhapsodic valentine to the capital. Steeped in pop history, at once nostalgic and proudly modern (witness the dub-house rewrite of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart), it's a debut radiant with possibility.

Oumou Sangare Moussolou (1991) One of the finest female singers in Mali, Oumou Sangare is a national celebrity both for her songs and for the messages behind them. On this early recording, she was backed by a small band dominated by guitar, kamelngoni and a mournful violin that matches her fine, thoughtful songs of advice to women.

Saturday Night Fever OST (1977) The best soundtrack of all time? If judged by the ratio of brilliant tunes to filler (95%/5%), quite possibly. The soundtrack that defines its era - the disco-dancing late 70s - better than almost any other? Without doubt. The one whose songs, especially the Bee Gees' contributions, still sound fantastic? Absolutely. That's why it sold 25m copies.

Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees (1976) Scaggs was a member of Steve Miller's San Francisco psychedelic band before leaving to pursue a career as a blue-eyed soul boy. On his seventh solo album, he hit commercial paydirt with a set of mellifluous R&B, including Lowdown and Lido Shuffle, making him an unlikely star of the late 70s.

Ulrich Schnauss A Strangely Isolated Place (2003) Berlin-based Schnauss almost sparked a shoegazing revival with his second album. He used to record as Ethereal 77, which sums him up: his widescreen music is lush and atmospheric; each track boasts a bunch of intertwining melodies. It's a consistently uplifting wall of sound.

Maria Schneider The Concert in the Garden (2004) The question "will the big bands come back?" was redundant by the time composer-bandleader (and former Gil Evans assistant) Schneider burst on the scene with genre-defining albums of powerful, intelligent, contemporary orchestrations. This elegant, enriching album shows her at the height of her powers.

Chico Science & Naçao Zumbi Afrociberdelia (1996) A year before his shockingly premature death, Chico Science was the auteur of this booming redefinition of the Brazilian sound. Afrociberdelia's heavy rock riffage, married to a neat embrace of electronics and a fondness for traditional drums, frogmarched the country's music out of the wine bar once and for all.

Scissor Sisters Scissor Sisters (2004) That Scissor Sisters' debut album went on to become the bestselling album of 2004 fails to convey quite how strange a proposition they were. Lyrics attacking Rudi Giuliani's clampdown on the NY gay scene? Silly hats? A disco cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb? Clearly the freaks had inherited the earth.

John Scofield Time on My Hands (1989) Guitarist Scofield injected a Hendrix-inspired raw power into the sometimes discreet sound of bop guitar, and this is one of his best sessions - not just for his own bluesy muscularity, but for the strength of some Mingus-inflected compositions. A huge bonus is saxophonist Joe Lovano; here the two begin a dialogue that continues today.

Scorch Trio Luggumt (2004) Norwegian bass player Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and Finnish/American guitarist Raoul Björkenheim are the ultimate improvising power trio. Ferocious, yet subtle and supremely gifted, they would never dream of just playing a backbeat; instead they deliver maximum rock kicks and peak on the title track as a sort of superspeed blur.

Raymond Scott Manhattan Research Inc (2000) Bandleader Scott was such a perfectionist that he preferred machines to musicians, building a vast studio, crammed with valves, relays and early sequencers, to make jingles and experimental soundscapes. His obsessive secrecy meant he was virtually written out of electro-history until this handsome book and double CD appeared.

The Searchers Sounds Like Searchers (1964) The most gentlemanly of the Merseybeat acts, on their fourth album the Searchers quit trying to rock so hard and settled for a darker folk-pop (drummer Chris Curtis's melancholic If I Could Find Someone, Burt Bacharach's overlooked Magic Potion) that bruised easily.

Sean Paul Dutty Rock (2002) Over the summers of 2003 and 2004, Sean Paul was inescapable. Smooth of flow and suave of manner, he embraced his status as dancehall's chosen crossover star fully. Few albums are as conducive to throwing moves on the dancefloor as Dutty Rock, a non-stop sequence of addictive, irresistible anthems.

Section 25 From the Hip (1984) Although the former Blackpool guitar band's pulsating Looking From a Hilltop became an unlikely hit in New York clubs, their Bernard Sumner-produced electronica experiment was initially ignored. However, sampled by Orbital and the Shamen, From the Hip's trance states and 303 drum machines now sound like an accidental prototype for techno.

Sex Pistols Spunk (1977) Recorded before they switched record companies and changed line-up for Never Mind the Bollocks, this "official bootleg", produced by Dave Goodman, is rawer and unarguably superior than its successor. With Rotten's lyrics upfront in the mix, it sounds as if they are bringing about the downfall of western civilisation.

SF Jazz Collective SF Jazz Collective (2005) Under Joshua Redman's leadership, the SFJC pioneered a new approach to jazz repertoire that complements their better-funded counterparts in the "straight" world. This is the first of a series of beautifully recorded live concerts that uses Ornette Coleman's compositions as a springboard to new work.

The Shadows 20 Golden Greats (1987) Hank Marvin took his specs from Buddy Holly and his guitar sound from America's west coast surf style - yet the Shadows are as British as Butlins. Just one listen to Apache or Foot Tapper reveals how exciting their instrumental pop must have sounded in 1960, and how priceless they remain.

The Shangri-Las Myrmidons of Melodrama (1994) Most 60s girl groups were primly romantic, but the Shangri-Las crackled with bad attitude. Hoodlums were lusted after, parents angrily defied and mangled corpses pulled from car wrecks, while producer Shadow Morton took Phil Spector's teen-pop blueprint to ever more vulgar proportions - a man gleefully defacing the Wall of Sound with a spray can.

Ravi Shankar In Celebration (1995) Co-produced by his friend George Harrison, who described Shankar as the godfather of world music, this well-illustrated four-CD set aimed to show the diversity of his work. There are classical sitar pieces, examples of his orchestral collaborations, playing alongside the LSO - and of course more experimental pieces, some involving Harrison himself.

Del Shannon Runaway With Del Shannon (1961) Here the baby-faced Michigan boy races his hiccupping Buddy Holly falsetto through 12 tracks of splendidly shiny-shoed rock'n'roll. The title track, with its famous wah-wah-wahs and musitron middle-eight, still burns brightest. But tales of latest flames, proms and heartbreak, accompanied by spry, nippy guitars, make the blood surge faster, too.

Sheila & B Devotion King of the World (1980) Disco never got more fabulous than this. Bringing together a famous French singer with Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of Chic, this album of glamorous melodies and silvery beats married European gloss and American sparkle. The result was deliciously catchy cosmic pop, schmaltzy enough to melt the heart and sharp enough to move the feet.

Andy Sheppard Dancing Man and Woman (1999) British saxophonist Andy Sheppard emerged in the late 80s, and has become one of the most quirkily subtle, inventive and sought-after UK musicians. This lyrical set reflects his fondness for massaging understated song-like pieces, with an augmented band including legendary American electric bassist Steve Swallow and tabla player Kuljit Bhamra.

Wayne Shorter Alegria (2003) Wayne Shorter's magnificent quartet is one you should hear before you die - but they are best experienced live. Alegria, however, is a great studio jazz product, expertly produced by Robert Sadin. It demonstrates Shorter's gifts as a composer-improviser, bringing classical and folkloric elements into a richly nuanced whole where every track is quite different.

Sigur Rós Ágætis Byrjun (1999) The Icelandic post-rockers' second album brought their breathtaking music to an international audience. The lyrics were all but irrelevant, but nobody could mistake its originality, its crystalline splendour or its sheer emotional wallop. Sadness never sounded so beautiful.

Judee Sill Abracadabra:The Asylum Years (2006) If you only buy one exquisitely beautiful album by a heroin-addicted prostitute and armed robber, it should probably be this. 70s singer-songwriter Judee Sill's brief life story is shocking. More shocking still is that it yielded music of such grace and fragility, tinged with country and soul, untainted by the abjection that enveloped her.

Silver Jews American Water (1998) In the roll-call of great American poet-songwriters who deliver acute insight in memorable parcels of dazzling imagery and engaging humour, David Berman's high standing is assured. His third album, recorded with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, is lyrically and musically his most confident, its country-rock tunes gentle yet fiery and deliciously hummable.

Paul Simon Graceland (1986) Did he break the cultural boycott of apartheid-era South Africa? Did he exploit African artists for his own gain? In the end, did it matter? Graceland sees the songwriter on top form: finding fresh inspiration, collaborating with an array of talented performers and introducing South Africa's amazing music to the rest of the world.

Simple Minds Sons and Fascination (1981) Before they descended into epic pomp-rock bluster, Simple Minds were purveyors of supremely romantic, slyly futuristic synth-pop. Sons and Fascination found them cannily mining a seam of mesmerising, shimmering art-rock, while tracks like Love Song were so gorgeously lustrous that you could even forgive them their future.

Frank Sinatra September of My Years (1965) A grave Sinatra approached 50 with the last of his unimpeachably great albums. The swing was set aside, and Sinatra given sweet string settings for his ruminations on ageing and mortality. When Sinatra managed humility - too rarely, once he left Capitol Records - his artistry was undeniable.

Siouxsie and the Banshees Juju (1981) Perennial masters of brooding suspense, the Banshees honed their trademark aloof art-rock to its hardest and darkest pitch on Juju. With their musical alchemy at its peak and Siouxie at her most imperious, pop marvels such as Spellbound and Arabian Knights were poised, peerless exercises in magic realism that you could dance to.

Sister Sledge We Are Family (1979) Chic's Midas touch turned the first of their album productions for Sister Sledge into a virtual Greatest Hits - He's the Greatest Dancer, Lost in Music, We Are Family and Thinking of You are symphonic disco perennials while Easier to Love and Somebody Loves Me proved that the Chic production team were no slouches when it came to ballads.

Sisters of Mercy Floodland (1987) Goth made most sense when taken to extremes, and Sisters of Mercy were its most devout absolutists. Gravel-voiced vocalist Andrew Eldritch scaled new heights of heroic pretension, while the introduction of Meat Loaf producer Jim Steinman on the none-more-black This Corrosion was a marriage made in heaven.

Sizzla Black Woman & Child (1997) The most charismatic - as well as controversial - Jamaican singer to emerge since the dancehall era, Sizzla's Black Woman & Child represents the young Rasta's most satisfying assimilation of reggae's present with the past. Digital production meets conscious lyrical themes, harking back to the 70s roots heyday.

Slade Slayed? (1972) Slademania swept the nation in 72, and Noddy Holder's awesome roar shot arguably their best studio album to No 1. With bovver-booted choruses as big as football stadiums, hits such as Gudbuy T'Jane remained fresh enough for Oasis to adopt the formula more than 20 years later, while the melancholy Look at Last Nite is the Black Country's own Don't Look Back in Anger.

Slave The Best Of (1994) Contemporaries of The Commodores and Kool & the Gang, Dayton, Ohio's Slave were an enormous funk-pop band, 11 members strong, who produced an enormous funk-pop sound, particularly on hits, featured here, such as Slide, Just a Touch of Love and Watching You, sung by funk legend Steve Arrington.

Slayer Reign in Blood (1986) It's easy to forget how controversial this record was: a satanic metal band that signed to a hip-hop label (Def Jam), took the visceral blur of hardcore punk as their starting point, and opened the album with a song "documenting" the atrocities of Josef Mengele. Nothing since has rocked the boat quite like it. Not even Slayer themselves.

Sleep Jerusalem (1999) A neat lesson in how to create a cult following in one easy step. Take your new album to your label and watch their horror as they realise it's one single, sludgey, 70-minute stoner rock song called Dopesmoker. They refuse to release it, a bootleg is leaked, and your status as underground legends is secured.

Slick Rick Behind Bars (1994) Recorded while Slick Rick was in prison for attempted murder, Behind Bars chillingly applies his trademark sly, sing-song delivery to tales of prison brutality, while his jokey retelling of sexual misdemeanours is undercut by the album's stunning highlight All Alone (No One to Be With), a melancholy, empathetic meditation on single motherhood.

Slint Spiderland (1991) Furtive and insidious, Spiderland sidles out of the speakers to strangle listeners in a filigree web of aching, beautiful melodies, to engulf you in spine-chilling darkness. Opening on a rollercoaster and closing with a gut-wrenching, desolate scream, Slint redefined rock dynamics with a fervour that has proved inspirational and unsurpassable.

The Slits Cut (1979) The Slits' debut made manifest punk's claims of revolution. Neither technically adept nor - as the topless, mud-caked Amazonians on the cover made abundantly clear - guitar-playing men, the Slits here created a stylistic fusion from chaos. Bob Marley had spoken of the punky reggae party. This, in fact, was it.

Slowdive Souvlaki (1993) Though regarded on release as a shoegazing anachronism in the dance-obsessed UK, more patient listeners abroad discovered the Thames Valley quartet building on their washy ethereal roots, and exploding out of their skins on the epic When the Sun Hits and Souvlaki Space Station.

Sly and the Family Stone There's a Riot Goin' On (1971) Holed up in his LA mansion, surrounded by guns, dogs and drugs and racked with hallucinatory paranoia, Sylvester Stewart's dark epic marked the end of the euphoric optimism of the 1960s. Bleak and full of foreboding, this was a desperate postcard from the centre of a life falling out of control.

The Small Faces The Autumn Stone (1969) In truth, you don't need a lot of Small Faces - like many classic 60s bands, they were inconsistent - but everything you do need is on their first posthumous best-of. Subsequent editions have also corrected the original's one significant error: excluding the monumental All or Nothing.

Harry Smith (ed) Anthology of American Folk Music (1952) Music history is crammed with colourful figures, but you'd be hard pushed to find anyone as kaleidoscopic as Harry Smith - abstract artist, experimental film-maker, occultist, bohemian and compulsive collector. As well as paper aeroplanes and Ukrainian Easter eggs, Smith collected records from the 1920s and 30s in their thousands: blues, bluegrass, barn-dance floor-fillers, gospel, murder ballads, Cajun tunes, songs about ­current affairs - a comprehensive catalogue of American music's formative sounds. In 1952, when Smith winkled out 84 songs for this anthology, "folk music" was a genre under construction. In Smith's imagining, it meant any music released commercially in the years before the Depression, to be enjoyed by ordinary people. The resulting six albums represented a snub to segregated, cold-war-mongering America. Black singers nestled alongside white, coal miners beside lawyers, virtuoso musicians beside those who could barely play. Smith's liner notes give deadpan synopses of the lyrics: "Zoologic miscegeny achieved in mouse-frog nuptials. Relatives approve." Raw and urgent, these songs and their performers reach across time to communicate the essence of what it is to be human. Smith saw in them an alternative history of his country, written by people who lived the Depression every day of their lives, who never chinked a cocktail glass, but danced in the dust and sang to the stars. His anthology is boisterous, cacophonous, plain bonkers at times - and captures everything that is life-affirming about music. Maddy Costa

Patti Smith Horses (1975) Horses - a frenzy of garage rock, jazz and beat poetry - was the first album from the New York punk scene, and a blueprint for generations of musicians. Michael Stipe of REM once claimed that this record "tore my limbs off and put them back on in a whole different order".

The Smiths Hatful of Hollow (1984) The rough energy and raw emotion at the heart of the Smiths is captured perfectly in this collection of BBC sessions, singles and B-sides. Versions of Handsome Devil and What Difference Does It Make? burn with tough love, and the tender finale of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want is a masterclass in moving simplicity.

Smog Knock Knock (1999) The seventh album from Bill Callahan, aka Smog, was his first collaboration with US alt.rock auteur Jim O'Rourke. It also saw him flirt with mainstream success, as three tracks from his latest collection of lugubrious modern folk got used in film soundtracks, notably the handclap-enhanced, sardonically upbeat Cold Blooded Old Times, which can be heard in High Fidelity.

Soft Cell Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981) What made Soft Cell's first album work so well, and set it apart from other albums of its synthtastic era, wasn't just its intimations of seediness and illicit doings but the sense that Marc Almond was singing from experience. His prematurely jaded bleat, coupled with David Ball's detached electronic backing, were a clarion call to deviants everywhere.

Soft Machine Vols 1 & 2 (1968/69) Although the production on these albums has been criticised - not least by the group - both are still a wonderful mix of "pataphysical" pop songs, jazz and psychedelia, and they're available on one CD. Powered by Robert Wyatt's hyperactive drumming and Mike Ratledge's fuzz organ, Soft Machine burst with invention and youthful energy.

Son of Bazerk Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk (1990) In the middle of the run that produced Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet and Ice Cube's solo debut, the Bomb Squad production team fashioned this neglected masterpiece. Son of Bazerk hitches his sharp-suited testifying to some abrasive hip-hop beats to create the missing link between Public Enemy and James Brown.

Sonic Youth Daydream Nation (1988) Though experimental, Daydream Nation confirmed Sonic Youth as a group who were primarily in love with rock'n'roll. Filled with a reimagining of the possibilities of electric guitar, this was psychedelic music in a not awfully psychedelic time - the Electric Ladyland, in fact, of the then-unnamed Generation X.

Soundgarden Superunknown (1994) Soundgarden were the over-achievers of grunge, and their fourth album remains a benchmark in rock production. Everything about it is huge, the powerful drum sound matching the ambitious, Beatles-influenced melodies. The album spawned equally massive hits, including Black Hole Sun, Spoonman and Fell on Black Days, each showcasing Chris Cornell's distinctive, ebbing roar.

Spacemen 3 The Perfect Prescription (1987) Sonic Boom and Jason "Spaceman" Pierce's mantra was "minimal is maximal" and Spacemen 3's magnum opus took the listener on a long, strange narcotic trip, from the chemical euphoria of Ecstasy Symphony to the opiate daze of Come Down Easy. Drone-rock is rarely so assured, alluring and addictive.

Spandau Ballet Journeys to Glory (1981) Spandau were kilt-wearing soulboys high on funk and synthpop at the cutting edge of London's club culture. Their debut album of "music for heroes" (as mythmaker Robert Elms wrote on the sleeve) featured Tony Hadley's android foghorn, first single To Cut a Long Story Short and further Kraftwerk-meets-Gap Band hits Muscle Bound and The Freeze.

Sparks Kimono My House (1974) The unforgettable California-born Mael brothers - pretty-boy falsetto Russell and Hitler-lookalike keyboardist Ron - were justly revered for their contribution to 1974. A fantastic pop album that offered witty, punning lyrics and the feeling that they were too clever by half - which was why their moment was over by 1976.

Bubba Sparxxx Deliverance (2003) A chubby white guy from the sticks is an unlikely hip-hop hero, but Bubba Sparxxx's "hick-hop" opus is one of the best hip-hop albums of this decade. Blending Timbaland's digital production with bluegrass samples, country laments and Bubba's own poetic, flowing musings on the South, Deliverance was an enthralling reminder of hip-hop's ability to function as folk music.

Britney Spears Baby One More Time (1999) Take one pretty teenager with an average vocal croak and bundles of ambition. Put her in a schoolgirl outfit, have her proclaim her virginity and then give her some solid gold songs to sing. Et voila! You have this 20m-selling debut album, which changed the face of pop.

The Specials Singles (1991) To glimpse the musical ambition of Jerry Dammers, look at the progress he made in just two years: from the ska of Gangsters, through the ersatz lounge of International Jet Set to arguably the greatest British No 1, 1981's terrifying, glowering Ghost Town. Then there was the late bloom of the Special AKA in 1984, which yielded the student- union anthem Nelson Mandela, and the delightfully sardonic (What I Like Most About You Is Your) Girlfriend.

Phil Spector Back to Mono (1991) Phil Spector remains the only person in pop to have written a Christmas album that is festive, fun and musically unimpeachable. But such miracles are possible when you orchestrate throwaway teen-pop with operatic intent. There's nothing ephemeral about this four-CD overview of his 1960s heyday - even its obscurities are giddy with invention.

Spice Girls Spice (1996) In 1996, Britpop appeared finally to be on its way out - thanks to five young women armed with little more than chutzpah who slammed the door behind it and hammered the final nail in its coffin with their celebratory, unapologetic pop. Spice is gleefully riotous; only the most stony-hearted could resist joining in.

The Spinners Pick of the Litter (1975) Detroit's Spinners, active since 1954, became producer/arranger Thom Bell's next proteges after the Stylistics, and he gave them a warmer, more measured and mature sound. Pick of the Litter, their third album, doesn't feature as many hits as their 1973 debut; nonetheless, it's the more seamless collection, including The Games People Play, a mid-70s soft-soul classic.

Spirit Future Games (1977) Although many consider Spirit's quartet of late-60s psychedelic jazz-rock albums their best, others prefer their run of four albums in the mid-70s, which peaked with this sci-fi/cosmic pop tour de force about war, faith and love. From Randy California's fevered imagination came this sonic mosaic, its 14 tracks interspersed with Star Trek dialogue and random FX bursts.

Spiritualized Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997) Jason Pierce denied it was his "I've just been dumped" album, and rightly so - this album is as much about addiction as it is about breaking up. Spiritualized's existential masterpiece combined hypnotic, cyclical guitar riffs, white-noise freak-outs, chemical oblivion and cosmic musings on flawed mortality to devastating effect.

Dusty Springfield From Dusty With Love (1970) After triumphing with the Memphis set, Dusty headed north for the nascent Philadelphia sound. Gamble & Huff were a couple of years shy of their string-driven soft-soul peak, but songs such as Let Me Get in Your Way and Never Love Again are ornate, exquisite and just-so for the singer's most delicate performances.